I had the opportunity to spend 4 days in Lima and 2 days in Quito, but only briefly had my PT/urbanista hat on.
From Wikipedia: “with a population of almost 10 million, Lima is the most populous metropolitan area of Peru and the second-largest city in the Americas (as defined by “city proper”), behind São Paulo and before Mexico City.” By comparison, Quito is slightly under 5 million – more the size of Toronto or Sydney. Ecuador appears to be a much more orderly country with better infrastructure, reflecting its history of stable democratic governments.
Peru has had long-running problems with corruption and the fabled insurrection of the Maoist “Shining Path” guerrillas in the central valleys, leading it to have a cash economy and a tax-avoiding, independent population exemplified by its taxi drivers, roadside vendors and numerous markets. The towns we saw were charming but pretty shabby, as were parts of Lima, with favelas climbing up the hillsides north of the city centre. However, Miraflores, the Lima oceanside suburb where we stayed, was a lovely, prosperous, sophisticated sub-tropical place, with lots of street life, boulevard cafés and smart shops.
The Metropolitano rapid bus in Lima (Wikipedia photo)
Lima’s traffic is horrendous, reflecting its lack of serious infrastructure spending. Although there is a one-line Metro (which we never saw) and the Metropolitano rapid bus that uses the separated centre lanes of the expressway running from the coastal suburbs into the Centro Historico, the vast majority of transit is small “collectivo” buses that run (illegally) like jitneys, as well as hordes of taxis, some of them legal and registered (taxis convienza), some of them not. It is free enterprise on steroids rather than a public-funded system like Translink.
Collectivos at a stop in Miraflores
The majority of the traffic appears not to be private cars but rather “shared” vehicles – the collectivos and taxis – plus service vehicles such as trucks, and it approaches gridlock for many hours of the day. Is this how the future will play out in other cities, as “share” services such as Uber et al clog the streets with constantly moving vehicles, some of them empty – maybe some of them driverless?
Public wifi in the Parque Kennedy in Miraflores
And yes, Virginia, there is a bike lane. It’s amazing how few people cycle given the pleasant climate and relatively flat topography.
Condo marketing is only slightly more audacious than Chez Rennie…
In Quito, Volvo triple-buses run at quite high speeds on dedicated lanes, even on the narrow streets of the Centro Historico…
A typical glassed-in station in Quito; you enter through a turnstile having paid your 25 cent fare, then board the bus through all doors very quickly when it arrives.
Interesting that the buses are high-floor buses (requiring a platform). That would certainly speed loading, and probably provide more useable floorspace than low-floor alternatives.
BUIT – you’d never see a raised platform station like that allowed on a street sidewalk by the NIMBYs or the urban designers in Vancouver.
The middle bus lane also looks very practically designed with a very narrow footprint (looks narrower than Burrard Bridge’s bike lane jersey barriers). Not sure about the impact strength of them, but if the posts are driven into the ground (not possible on a bridge), they may be quite strong.
The dividers for the bus lane don’t constitute barriers, they are more of a fence. At least they don’t divide counter flow traffic. What they stop are private vehicles that may otherwise be tempted to use the transit lanes. Their impact performance would be similar to the new fence along the Stanley Park causeway, which are designed to be sacrificial and easily replaced in sections after each impact. Those barriers weren’t designed to stop cars from passing through, but rather prevent people on bikes from falling into the roadway in the event of an incident or crash on the paths themselves.
I teach annually in Lima, specifically in Miraflores and it is an amazing city. People are very friendly and decent, and their culture is ripe for the sharing economy. The students in the Masters program are mostly seasoned professionals and mid-level executives, and I think because of their clout every year I see some of the project they work on in class show up on the streets. An example is the expansion of the cycling network after a team worked on a business case for extending it. And I bring lots of Vancouver examples so most of them have a good sense of what is happening up here (the good and the bad).
Their economic growth has somewhat paralleled China the past decade and with the increase in wealth, an increase in private vehicles. Every year I see more and more luxury cars on the roads. So the challenge is how to develop a growing city based on sustainable principles that is on one hand part of their culture, but at the same time they have the same physical and logistical challenges we see world-wide.
But it is still comparatively dangerous to walk and cycling in as like any dense city, it’s a fend for yourself and jump the queues-mentality if you want to get ahead. A really big issue is safety and modern design standards are somewhat lacking. Their governance is surprisingly sophisticated but how that translates into infrastructure decisions and implementation is the issue. At least they understand and appreciate multi-criteria “triple-bottom line” decision making unlike many parts of the world.
But what is missing is data and evidence, not that we have an adequate amount ourselves, but without it decisions are prone to loudest rhetoric-bias. So a project i’m working on with one of their universities is to develop a transport database for Peru, and then use that data to pursue positive change through effective policies, regulation, and funding.
You get the impression of a real optimism, at least in that part of Lima. Huge police presence though. Quito seemed a little more grim, with more beggars, although the country itself appears to be more prosperous than Peru.
Those triple buses might be a good replacement for the 99 B-Line once the Broadway Line extension is built.
That kind of bus rapid transit really takes over a narrow roadway. The Centro Historico bus routes are one-way with only a narrow second lane that is usually jammed with taxis. I agree it would work on Broadway, but the comment above about the impact of the stations on the sidewalk is true — there would be protests.